Today we talked about stress

My students are really stressed. And its only the beginning of the semester. Some of them are over 400 points. They need to go to www.vitality.com and read artilce #543 called "self-Care: Reducing Your Stress Now." I hope they find ways to do that.
I'm very stressed too, so I'll be checking that out.

New Class, New list

Here are some more responses to the question- "What makes a great teacher?"
A great teacher....
has good methods
is encouraging,
passionate,
knowledgable,
speaks clearly,
is experienced,
helpful,
friendly,
authoritative,
asks challenging questions,
follows the rules (I disagree!)
pushes the students to develop their knowledge
lights a spark
gives of her time
has extra materials
is fair,
and prepared,
and understands her/his students.

The State Fair of Texas...

is the biggest state fair, I believe. I was talking to some of the teachers I teach a learning community with about the fun of taking the students to the fair, and one of them got very gung ho about the idea. We talked to the students about it, and they said they wanted to go, so we did a kind of last minute field trip to the fair last Tuesday. (Tuesday, because with a can of Dr. Pepper, admission is only $3.) Since my dad was in town, I got him to bring the kids over and pick me up from work, and we met up with my students next to Big Tex. I told the Leila and Ali to look for a giant. (I was trying to get them to move quickly as we were a little late to meet the students.) Once we found him, Ali was fascinated. Throughout the day he talked about him and asked to go back to "The Giant." (Leila was translating for him as I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.) The students and I touched base, and then we all split up. Three of the students decided to hang out with us for a while. I wanted to do some kid stuff, so we headed to the petting zoo area. It took us so long to get over there that we missed a show I wanted to see, but then we found the farm. Ann, one of the students, and I walked the kids through as they watered a peach tree and picked a peach, milked a cow, fed the chickens and gathered eggs, planted and harvested vegetables, drove a tractor, and fed a sheep who gave them wool. At the end of the farm they "sold" their goods and got a coupon with which to buy healthy snacks from the store. Meanwhile, my dad and two of the students were standing outside. My dad had started explaining the finer points of cattle and chickens to them- (One year of agricultural school and a lifetime of interest). They, however, weren't so interested, and abandoned us when we headed down to see "Birds of the World." Ann stuck with us and was a big help with the kids; they really enjoyed her, too. In an attempt to create some unity on the field trip, I had told all the students that we would be at the 2:30 Bird show. Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the fair, so we dashed over there. The show was great, but we didn't see any students. My kids managed to eat up all of their healthy snacks from the store. Then we headed back to where we'd been before since we hadn't yet looked at the animals. On the way back we decided to do the Log Ride. It was great. Leila was in the front, and then Ali, and then me, holding on to him. We rode along calmly, and then started moving up the "hill" for the big drop at the top. I had to let go of Ali on the way up so that I could hold on to the rails, but I grabbed him when we got to the top, which was a good thing since the log didn't stop, but immediately dropped to the bottom. Leila found that scary, but overall we enjoyed the ride. Luckily admission was cheap, because we spent lots of money on food tickets. The kids ate icecream, I split a deep fried latte with my dad, we ate twister fries, the kids shared a frozen lemonade from Ann, and my dad and I finished off with some delicous root beer. The State Fair is known for frying things- this year it was deep fried cookie dough, guacamole, latte, and coke. (There's more, but I cannot fathom deep frying all these things.) The deep fried latte was really some deep fried cookie things topped with coffee icecream and whipped cream. It was good, but not worth the hype. When we got home that evening I could barely move!

New class, some new thoughts

I have new students now. I'm even at a different college. But I'm still teaching some of the same things. Right now my hard-working students are taking quizzes. I hope they aren't too hard for them, but I want to make sure they are hard enough that they are getting their money's worth!

Avoiding spam comments

I just found out how to avoid spamming. You have to go to the settings part of the blog, click on comments, and then choose the word verification option. This requires people who want to comment to type in a word in order to post. Therefore, the people who use automatic blog posts to comment won't be able to.
Okay, I hope that helps!

Great Teachers

Today in class we read a slection by Pat Conroy about great teachers which he describes as having outrageous personalities. Then the students listed the qualities of what they think a great teacher is. Here were their top picks from each group.
friend
fair- gives students what they deserve
teach about life (not just class work)
patient
always shows good attitude (and acts like they have a good attitude when they have a bad attitude)
understanding
honest
creative
fair- doesn't discriminate
open-minded
sense of humor
punctual (ha)
rolde model
respectful
comfortable to be around
authoritative
responsible
has good teaching strategies- "Can get the knowledge into the students' heads" one student said.
makes you challenge yourself.
Once again my students have come up with a long list that is probably impossible to comply with completely. But, I can do my best. As someone said, "You can't please all of the people all of the time."
We talked about how different cultures interpret things in different ways. For example, for some cultures it's very important to show authority in the way that you dress, and the students' first impressions of the teacher establish his or her authority. Other students said that authority is something that is earned over time as the students get to know the teacher.
I can tell this is going to be an interesting group, and I'm already proud of them because noone said a great teacher gives less homework.

women in fairy tales

My students have posted some fantastic stories of women that come from their cultures. In English/European culture, there are so many fairytales where a woman is rescued by a man: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel. But it's interesting that the wicked person in the fairytales is often an old women. So much of what we're taught about the roles of men and women comes through stories like this that we read as children. Paula Gunn Allen talks about the stories through which her mother taught her the role of women. These included strong images of women as fire bringer, sacred bundle bringer and creator.
I loved fairy tales as a child, and I still do. But I want to be careful that I don't impart values that I disagree with to my daughter.